Polpetto, Soho (not really a review)

Like most food lovers in London, I like the small snack-y Italian dishes served at Polpo. Their fried goodies, pizzas and seafood are dependably good; prices are reasonable; and the atmosphere’s lively. The only thing not to like are the queues that form every night thanks to Polpo’s no-reservations policy.

So really, I should have known better when my friends and I made plans to drop by Polpetto (Polpo’s recently-opened sibling) on a Wednesday evening. Optimistically, I’d hoped that because we were arriving just before 7 pm on a Wednesday, and because the initial-opening hype had died down, the wait would be minimal. Based on early reports by Gourmet Chick and Hollow Legs, who were at Polpetto during their soft opening (when prices were 50% off), Polpetto sounded like a real winner. So I figured the risk of a wait would be worth it.

Well. The four of arrived at just before 7 pm, and the *single* four-person table was occupied. (Polpetto, you may have heard, is about half the size of already-tiny Polpo). So Polpetto’s maitre d’ took one of our mobile numbers and promised to text us when the four-top was free, which he estimated to be in an hour, max.

The French House, the pub downstairs, was heaving, so we parked ourselves next door at slightly-seedy-looking Lupo (whose bartender, by the way, gets a shout out for exceeding expectations). We chatted, we sipped, we waited. At 8 pm, we received a text saying the table in question had skipped dessert and was on coffees. We got excited and finished our drinks.

8:05 pm – We received a text saying that Polpetto was cash only that evening. So we wandered around Soho for the next 10 minutes looking for a cashpoint. They’re not as ubiquitous as you’d think.

8:15 pm – We received another text informing us that the table in question still hadn’t paid their bill.

8:30 pm – We gave up on Polpetto and just walked over to Leong’s Legends (which is clearly visible from Polpetto). Good ol’ Leong’s. There, we loaded up on xiao long bao (slowly going downhill, but still better than most London versions), dou miao (sauteed snow pea leaves) and pork belly dishes (both the gua bao “taiwanese kebabs” and the braised dish). £15 a person. All good.

Really, nothing is worth a 90-minute wait (at least). And why is Polpetto able to seat only one group of four at a time? Were there no adjoining two-person tables that became free over the course of 90 minutes?

Advice: If you want to eat at Polpetto, go as a party of two. Not four. And have a backup plan. Leong’s will do just nicely.

Alternatively, don’t even try to get into Polpetto. London Eater thinks there are more misses than hits on the menu anyway. If you simply must have your bacaro experience, stick with Polpo instead, where even on a bad night, I’ve never waited more than an hour. And at Polpo, you can order food while you wait at the bar, which is something you can’t do at Polpetto.

Restaurants of London: please please take bookings! Dishoom, Barrafina, Polpo — we love you yet we hate you for not taking bookings.

7 Responses

I see your point, when you want to have a good meal and you don’t want to wait then it’s a pain to have to queue. You can book at lunchtime though, and for 4 people to go to a no-booking 28 seat restaurant, I’m not surprised it was a big wait. On the other hand, we decided on a last minute whim to go for a nice dinner last night and Polpetto accomodated us perfectly and we didn’t have to faff around with bookings.

I also saw Kang’s review and was quite baffled by it; what other ‘tired old Soho Italian’ cooks cuttlefish in it’s own ink? And what on earth does ‘the flavours were redolent of New Zealand’ mean…?

We were definitely prepared to wait (after all, all four of us are familiar with, and fans of, Polpo), and we did wait at least an hour before getting antsy. But I hope you’ll agree it’s pretty unusual to queue for well over an hour, even at tiny places like Barrafina. Plus, as I said at the end of my post, at least at Polpo, you can order while waiting at the bar.

I hope Polpetto might reconsider its no-bookings policy and if they’re worried about no-shows, they could be militant about giving tables away if people don’t show up at least 5 mins early or something.

In New York, most restaurants would do a mix of both – take bookings and also reserve a certain number of tables every night for walk-ins. It’d be interesting to see if that system could work here in London, too.

As for lunch – I’ll think about it. Soho’s not esp easy for me to reach at lunchtime, and well, lunch isn’t the same as dinner, is it?

I’d warn against going to Polpo on a Wednesday too! I went a few weeks ago and had to wait ages for a table for two. Basically, on Wednesday nights people seem to want to hang on to their table – they don’t have after dinner plans or don’t want a big night – so they linger. we were waiting for multiple tables (3-4 at least) that had finished their coffees and received their bill but were not budging!! very rude when they can see a huge queue of people.

Jane – interesting theory on Wednesday dining . . . I can see that. You’re right that there’s *always* a wait at Polpo, too. But I’m pretty sure I’ve never waited for more than an hour – which is my limit, and which I think is a pretty tolerant limit, even. In any case, at least you can order at the bar while waiting at Polpo, don’t you think?

Above all, though, the whole “no bookings” thing is rough. I’d go more often to Barrafina or Polpo if I knew I wouldn’t have to queue.

Seriously. When we got to Leong’s, they asked us to wait ten minutes, which at first was very hard to hear, but then we figured there was no reason to take out our crankiness on Leong’s. Ten minutes is a reasonable wait. 90 minutes, not so much.

My problem with no booking restaurants is once I finally get a table (my waiting limit is an hour too), I actually feel really bad for the people still waiting, and can never seem to relax and enjoy my meal…

Agreed if barrafina, polpo etc adopted did 50% reservations/50% walk in policy I would probably go a lot more frequently.